Mediumism and the early Theosophic movement:

> > the concept of "Mahatmas" as it is usually understood in
> > theosophic circles. To me the Mahatmas of the early
> > theosophic movement are very close to spirit guides in the
> > Spiritualist movement and that's just the way I see it.
>
> That actually came later. The Mahatmas represented
themselves as being
> quite human, and were rather upset when treated as
something greater
> than human.
>
> > many of the
> > early theosophists were spiritualists and frequented
seances
> > and this tinged the Mahatma concept with a kind of flavor that
to
> > me has thrown many of our most valuable contributions into
> > disrepute.
>
> Actually, Blavatsky went into the Spiritualist movement
because the
> type of people who joined it were the type of people likely to be
> interested in Theosophy. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (among other
things, a
> leader of the British Spiritualist movement) wrote that when
she first
> came, the spirits were quite friendly towards her, but turned
against
> her when she started declaring that they were just empty
shells.
>
> Bart Lidofsky
There is to me a lot of deception apparent and shadowy doings
that I believe that afflicted the early Theosophic movement...A
kind of spiritualistic oneupmanship and battle for leadership and
authority... We may still be suffering the effects of it.
To me the very legitimate service of the Theosophic movement
was to introduce westerners to the wisdom of the east.
A second was to liberate westerners from the thralldom of their
churches so they could enjoy a spiritual life free of the old
orthodoxy.
A third was to introduce progressive social principles.. this
would be seen in education, prison reform as well as social
-economic experimentation. Recall that many of the early
theosophists were also Socialists such as Annie Besant and
Rudolf Steiner.
In various ways these three goals were accomplished, but the
deceptive, mediumistic aspects tended I think to downgrade the
otherwise beneficial direction of the movement.
- Art